1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headlamp for vehicles and, more particularly, to a headlamp for vehicles that enables size and weight reduction of a cooling device therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, lamps emit light when receiving power and headlamps provided to vehicles radiate light so that a driver may see in front of the vehicle. Recently, a headlamp has been developed which employs a light emitting diode as a light source and has high brightness with less power consumption.
FIG. 1 is a schematic section view of a conventional headlamp for vehicles and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a cooling device of the conventional headlamp.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a headlamp 50 for vehicles is located at a lower side of an engine room and includes a lamp housing 20 which is open at a front side thereof. The lamp housing 20 accommodates a light source 31, a reflector plate 32, and an interior lens 33 therein.
The light source 31 emits light when receiving power, and the reflector plate 32 is located behind the light source 31 to reflect light emitted from the light source 31 in front of the reflector plate 32. The interior lens 33 is located in front of the light source 31 and reflects the light towards the outside. The lamp housing 20 is provided with a cooling device that includes a cooling fin 34 and a cooling fan 35 to cool the light source 31.
The opening of the lamp housing 20 is covered by an exterior lens 40. Light from the light source 31 is radiated to the outside through the interior and exterior lenses 33, 40 directly or after being reflected by the reflector plate 32.
Here, it should be noted that the aforementioned technique is related to the background art of the invention and is not a conventional technique.
A conventional headlamp for vehicles requires a cooling device for cooling a light source. Particularly, when an LED is used as the light source, it is necessary for the cooling device to have sufficient cooling efficiency for cooling the LED which is vulnerable to heat. Such a cooling device includes a cooling fin and a cooling fan, which generally have large sizes and incur high power consumption to ensure appropriate cooling efficiency. Furthermore, the conventional headlamp requires a separate moisture removing device to remove moisture generated inside the headlamp.
Therefore, there is a need to solve such problems of the conventional headlamp.